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Spinach May Soon Power Mobile Devices
neutron_p writes "For the first time, MIT researchers have incorporated a plant's ability to convert sunlight to energy into a solid-state electronic "spinach sandwich" device that may one day power laptops and cell phones."
The Apple PopiPod, now with Bluto size capacity.
I think I see Pop-eye using their laptops in incredibly effective infomercials now! Will Bluto be using the regular crummy "battery-powered" laptops?
I sell out to The Man every day.
You know, that sounds mighty familiar...
I wonder why they don't use Algae, seems that stuff works extremely well and multiplies fast to prove the point
"Dude, your laptop smells like a swamp!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
organic notebook. Does that make it a cyborg?
Hivemind harvest in progress..
You MIT bastards are gonna pay!
Fine just as long as i don't have to eat it.
*waits to hear all the lame Popeye jokes...
Let's just hope that "People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables" doesn't find out.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The biologically based solar cells, which convert light into electrical energy, should be efficient and cheap to manufacture, says co-creator Marc Baldo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
Baldo's team isolated a variety of photosynthetic proteins from spinach and sandwiched them between two layers of conducting material. When light was shone on to the tiny cell, an electrical current was generated...
The prototype cells still need a little refinement. At present, they can generate current for up to 21 days; then they give up. So alternatives that last longer are needed.
The cells also convert only about 12% of the absorbed light energy into electricity. Still, the researchers believe that it should be possible to reach 20% efficiency, which is better than typical values for commercial silicon solar cells.
Full here
It may be that more efficient and more durable chloroplasts can be found or made. The evolution of solar power seems to be going in several directions at once. It makes me wonder what experiments are in progress and not reported yet?
CB(*&^%^*)&^
free ipod and free gmail!
You know you live in the 21st century, when your cell phone is better suited to perform photosynthesis than it is to talk to other people.
Huk-kuk-kug-kug-kug... oh...whaddya know there... nows I can call Olive on me spinachk-phone.
(c'mon! someone had to make the reference!)
We've been using Olive Oil to create light, now spinache to create power, sadly Bluto isn't a viable power source.
On the other hand, if we could generate some form of alternative fuel out of cheeseburgers we wouldn't have to pay until Tuesday.
If they were motivated by a Nobel prize, or lofty humanitarian goals, the article would read how this invention would help solve the energy crisis, save the environment, cure world hunger, etc..
Of course, they're really after investor dollars. So it's about neat-o stuff for your iPod. Ending homelessness simply has a poor ROI.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The article in the summary seems to have been /.ed so here is another article I found.
Oddly enough I was thinking about this in the shower this morning. Of course all I was thinking was "Hey I wonder if you could use a plant's ATP producing ability like a battery?" I didn't actually figure out how to do it in the shower, just that it would be cool. This is much more impressive.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Alright I've got 10,000 night minutes for my brand new spinich phone! ...unfortunately it doesnt work at night.
Lets make a rule that nothing gets posted until it has a part number, price and ship date. Next it'll be Personal Computers with hard drives. Electronic cameras. Carrying your entire eight track tape collection around in a little box called an iPod.
A little reality here.
Dear mommy, I didn't send you email for a long time because the dog ate the spinach battery of my laptop...
What an incredibly lame P.C. response to progress. Homelessness is a socio-economic problem, not a scientific one. This same sort of complaint against sciencse/technology has often been heard before, as arguments against the Internet and space exploration. But I never thought I'd hear it on Slashdot. I guess the invasion of the load and clueless is continuing on schedule.
Yeah, maybe I'll loose some karma points here, but I just can't let this sort of whiney idiocy go by without yelling.
It's possible to make *any* achievement sound trivial by choosing the right words. You call this "using Spinach to power your cell phone" because you're just reading the summary.
Consider that conventional solar cells are among the most toxic devices now made and you've got a new way to avoid dumping horrible chemicals into the environment, a sustainable way to have solar power, and spin-offs of the knowledge to more efficiently reclamate CO2 pollutiona t the production site. How does "the survival of humans on earth" stack up to "ending homelessness"?
Of course, the ways to end homelessness in the long run are drug treatment, education, and job creation. New kinds of cell-phones, and hence more jobs, are the main place you'd use engineers and organic chemists to fix homelessness.
My first instinct was, "Wait a minute... they want to add a third wheel to solar energy?" We already have silicon solar panels that convert sunlight into energy. So why add something in between? Wouldn't that be less efficient?
The more I researched, though, the more I realized that my initial reaction was somewhat rash. Think about it: if nature already has a time-proven method, why not harness that rather than reinventing the wheel? Especially if the "reinvented" (silicon) method is less efficient.
I found a CNN article from 2 October 2003 where this idea was explained. Back then, less than a year ago, it was estimated that the efficiency would reach 10 percent by the end of 2004. According to one source referenced by another poster, we're already at 12 percent, and now achieving 20 percent is expected! (According to the CNN article, 20 percent is the efficiency of our current silicon solar power.) If the technology continues to develop at this rate, it could become more energy-efficient than silicon and allow for some very cool technology in the not-too-distant future.
(What exactly that technology might be, I'm not too sure. Who wants a disposable cell phone battery when current ones can be recharged in a couple hours? Anyone have any thoughts on how this tech could be best used?)
the JoshMeister on Security
This is a link to a relevant article on the mit servers (the other ones are toasted)
This is completely false. This is not a sig.
Beowulf cluster of plants... I believe that's called a "garden".
Except we used a potato and a beaker with salt water. The power we generated we used to light a bulb. ;)
Come and say hi. http://forum.penpals.com/index.php
I used to work in the ag-packaging industry.
Boxes for spinach are very distinctive, because they have a TON of holes in them to allow cooling systems to be more efficient when they're stacked on a pallet in a refrigerated truck etc.
(most boxes for leafy greens-lettuce, etc. have a few holes but nothing like on the scale of spinach boxes)
When I asked about this, I was told that the spinach is so biologically active--even after being picked--that it generated enough heat inside the boxes to require extra cooling--otherwise the shelf life would plummet.
Hint: keep your greens at EXACTLY 34F / 1C (no lower than that, and not much more than a couple of degrees higher). They'll last far, far longer in your refrigerator!
So, I guess that's why they picked spinach for this project. That dark, dark green is there for a reason.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
"MIT researchers have incorporated a plant's ability to convert sunlight to energy"
/.)
And what is sunlight made of??
Light is not converted to energy. This sentence is ridiculous. The sunlight already is a form of energy that is converted to electrical energy through a new process.
Asinine statements like this really irk me (especially when they come from supposedly technical sources like
There should be a moderation category "Dumbest Comment EVER"
Hmmm, do you really think they'd let you on board the plane with a squirt-bottle full of Roundup, anyway?
Or is Roundup one of those "Sure, it kills plants down to their roots, but it's perfectly safe for humans. Here, I'll squirt it in my eyes to prove it!"
I'll have to check the label when I get home, I guess.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Don't get the frozen stuff. The bagged spinach works best. Put olive oil and garlic in a pan over medium-high heat and let it get warm. Add spinach and toss to coat for about a minute. It's one of the best non-meat foods I can think of.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I hope for your sake you know what an imaginary number is - it'll become important when you try to figure out how many koalas, toucans, and monkeys I 'didn't eat' in the 14 years I've been a vegetarian.
----- Vegans don't send SPAM.